by Naomi West
“Bitch!” he shouts. “Slut! Whore! You’ll be sorry. Just you wait!”
I put the car in reverse and back away.
Chapter Sixteen
Xander
How long have I been drinking? I try and work it out but everything is way more difficult than it ought to be right now. A long time, at any right, a damn long time. I know I’ve been drinking for a long time in the same way other fellas know they’ve been … I close my eyes, rub my face. Other fellas—somethin’ about other fellas. I stand up and goddamn if walking ain’t a pain in the ass. I walk through four, five, six whisky bottles, and I’m holding one, so maybe I’ve drunk somethin’ like seven bottles of whisky. That’s pretty good going, even if the floor is so sticky I know I must’ve spilt some.
I’ve got no damn clue where Kayla’s gone, or if Kayla was here yesterday or the day before or the day before that, or if I even met her. Maybe that was all just a drunken dream. Maybe when I wake up I’ll find out that that was all a lie. I don’t know how I’d feel about that, my mind lying to me in that way. Mind, mind a mind and it’ll mind you. My dad said that to me; no, he didn’t.
“Ah!” I twist my neck side to side, trying to lean down so I can splash some water in my face. I’ve never been this wasted, and that’s a fact. Or have I? I can’t remember what the question was.
I piss as best I can into the toilet bowl and then return to the living room, dropping onto the couch. I shot a man in chinos, just to watch him try … Somethin’ ain’t right about that.
My phone screen is blurrier than a pair of tits pushed up against rain-spattered glass, but I manage to focus on it by squinting real hard. Kayla’s called me nineteen times and left me one voicemail. Nineteen goddamn times. What would make a woman call a man nineteen times? Surely it must be something serious. Maybe she’s in trouble. Maybe the kid is in trouble. That’s the thing, Arsen’s kid. That’s family right there. That’s blood. You got the club and then you got blood, and you’ve gotta protect blood just as much as you’d protect the patch. That’s what a man does. That’s how a man works. I listen to the voicemail. Shit, she is in trouble.
“All right,” I mutter. “Time to sober up. Time to get after her.”
I walk around the apartment for what feels like a long time, looking for my car keys. The problem is I keep forgetting where I’ve already looked, so I’ll search under the somewhere and then the someplace and then come back to the somewhere wondering if my keys might be there. The way I discover that this is happening is ’cause the couch dances across the room, ending up pressed right against the wall from how much I’ve lifted it up to look underneath it. In the end I come to terms with the fact that my car keys have just disappeared and I grab my bike keys instead, pull on my leather pants and my boots and my jacket—gotta be safe now, since I might still be a little drunk—and head for the door with my helmet under my arm.
The elevator is busted so it’s the stairs or fly down, but the stairs are harder today than usual, steeper, it feels like. I grasp onto the railing and take it slowly, one slow-motion step at a time. I think a few people walk by me but I’m not sure, since walking down these damn stairs is taking so much effort. Why am I doing this again? Oh, yeah, Kayla. Shit, Kayla! I hope nothing bad has happened to her. She wouldn’t call me twenty-nine times for no reason, would she? A woman who calls a man thirty-nine times must have somethin’ to say.
Finally I make it outside. I put on my helmet and go over to my bike. I don’t know if it’s the reflection of the sun off the visor or the drink or what, but it looks like my car has vanished. I climb onto my bike and fuck around with the key for a long time, trying to get it in the ignition. I need to find Kayla, to keep her safe, to make sure that nothing bad happens to her or the kid. Why isn’t she with me? It was silly of her to leave. She should’ve stayed where I could keep her safe. I have no idea what would possess her to waltz off like that. It was a damn stupid decision, if you ask me.
“Come on,” I mutter, finally getting the key in. I start the bike and kick away the stand, and then pull onto the road. I go slow ’cause riding is more difficult today, like the world has turned sideways and gravity is upside-down. I turn the corners slowly, better safe than sorry and all that, and then I realize I’ve got no clue where I’m going. I just ride. I should stop—streetlamp, wall, the world turns over and over and over.
I lie on the floor looking up at the sky through a web pattern of cracked plastic, my body roaring at me that I’m a fucking idiot, a real jerk. I lean up and look around me: my bike, wrapped around a streetlamp, a couple of people walking toward me, no one else involved. That’s something, at least.
“Nothing will sober you up like a crash,” I whisper, wondering what the hell’s the matter with me. I must have a screw loose, or several.
I try to stand up, but my head feels groggy and my legs feel weak. I collapse back to the concrete, wondering if this is what folks mean when they talk about rock bottom.
Chapter Seventeen
Kayla
I spend the rest of the day in my apartment, feeding Cormac, listening to daytime TV, and watching the door with the pepper spray in my hand. Cormac settles down after a little while, snoozing for most of the afternoon. I don’t know what to do; I have to figure something out. This situation with Connor is getting so out of hand that staying here is starting to look stupider and stupider. I can’t just sit here and wait for him to burn this apartment building down just like he did with Arsen. He’ll take my baby, sell him. He’ll force me to marry him. He’ll do something twisted and evil and I’ll look back on this moment and call myself an idiot for letting pride get in the way of safety.
I go to the window and look down on the street, at the setting sun throwing longer shadows. A streetlamp collides with a trashcan, and then both shadows melt away into darkness. My belly rumbling is the only thing which reminds me that I haven’t eaten all day, my mind has been so preoccupied. I go to the kitchen and make myself a couple of bagels. They are a bit stale, but they stop my belly rumbling.
I go into the bedroom and sit on the floor near Cormac’s crib. “I wish I could talk to you about this,” I say, touching his foot through the slats. “I wish I could ask you how you felt, and that you really understood yourself enough to give me an answer. It’ll be a long time before we can have a conversation like that, I guess, but it’d be nice, wouldn’t it, if we could? I wonder if you’ll like reading. I need to get back into it.” I stretch out my arms. “I don’t know what to do, little guy.”
“Ma,” he whispers. “Ma, ma, ma.”
I leap to my feet and look down at him. “What, baby?” I say, knowing that this is ridiculous. He’s not even a year old yet.
“Ma, ma, ma, ma,” he babbles. “Ma, ma, ma, ma.” He’s chewing on the sheets, grinning up at me, saying it over and over again.
“I thought you said ‘mama’ there for a second.”
“Ba, ba, ma, ma.” He laughs.
I sit back on the floor and think, really think, about how I want his life to go. I have two roads ahead of me. On one the notion that my son might meet with something dreadful is at least possible, and that possibility is surely unacceptable. A mother shouldn’t even entertain it. On the other I can do everything in my power to make him safe. It’ll be dangerous and scary, starting anew, but it’ll be more dangerous and scarier living with Connor’s shadow hanging over us. I go into the living room, pick up the bag I packed when I went to Xander’s, and wonder. It might be the best course of action. It might be the only reasonable course of action. Connor isn’t going to take being pepper sprayed well. He’ll exact his revenge in any way he can.
I sit on the couch with the bag across my knees, drumming my fingertips against it.
Then my cellphone goes off. “Hello?”
“It’s me.” Xander’s voice is drawn-out and sleepy, but he doesn’t sound drunk anymore. There isn’t the same biting aggression there. “I just wanted to talk to you.”
> “You sound tired. Did you sleep?”
He lets out a coughing laugh. “Sleep. Yeah. Sort of, I guess. I … I got your calls and then I … goddamn, I can hardly remember shit. I looked down at my phone and I saw that you’d called me dozens of times and I knew that something was wrong. I don’t even know if I remember that or if I’m just piecing it together. I crashed my bike, Kayla.”
“Oh my God!” I start pacing around the room without really realizing what I’m doing. “What happened? Is everybody okay?”
“I was the only one involved, thank fuck for that.” He laughs grimly. “I was tanked, Kayla, I was more tanked than I’ve ever been in my whole goddamn life. I can’t even remember what happened, any of it, truth be told. The last thing I remember is having a bad dream and going into the kitchen, and then it’s all a blank. I take it I said some pretty mean shit to you, seeing as you’re not at my place?”
“We argued,” I admit. “You said you couldn’t help me anymore.”
He groans. “Jesus Christ. My head feels like it could explode, and that’s even with all the pain meds they’ve given me. I don’t know what I said. I guess we can talk about it later, but right now I just want you to know that I’m here for you, all right? I’ll protect you. I won’t be in here for long. I’ve got my boys coming to get me. I’ll be out by tomorrow at the latest. Go to my place and wait there until I get out. I’ll have someone guard the building. You’ll be safe, I promise.”
“Uh—”
“What?” he asks. “What happened? What’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong.” I let out a long sigh. I wish I could do what he’s asking me, wish I could just run back to his apartment and sit there feeling comfortable, feeling at peace, feeling like I can relax now.
“It is,” he says. “Tell me.”
“It’s just that I’ve been here before, with my dad. He’d always tell me about how he was going to do this and that, about how he was going to change and become a better man and all this stuff, Xander, all this stuff that I bought into to begin with, but the more he said it, the more ridiculous it seemed. He just said these things and it was like he really believed them, you know, when he was saying them. In that moment he meant it. But then the next night he’d just be the same old drunk dad, acting the same old way. So I don’t know.”
“I’m not your father,” Xander says, though even he sounds unsure. Perhaps he recognizes himself in my account of Dad. Perhaps he knows that all alcoholics are similar to some degree. And he is an alcoholic. There’s no denying that. “I won’t push you away again. I promise you that. I swear on it.”
“I believe you,” I tell him. “Right now, in this moment, I believe what you’re saying. I believe that you mean it. But what happens when you start feeling guilty about Arsen again, or when you have a hard day, or whatever? All it takes is that one sip and you’ll turn into a completely different man. I don’t think I can put my child through that, Xander. I don’t think that’s fair. Do you think that’s fair, really?”
“I promise you,” he says, “that I won’t fuck you over like that again. I swear on Arsen’s life.”
The promise hits me heavily in the chest. I lean back in my chair, hand on my knee, squeezing tightly. The cynical teenager inside of me tells me that I’m being stupid, that anybody can swear on anything and it doesn’t change the reality of the situation, but it still hits me hard. He did more than promise; he swore on the person he cared about most. Surely that must mean something. But then, how many times did Dad swear on Mom’s life and vice versa?
“Okay,” I say, not sure what I mean by that. “I think you should get some rest, Xander. We’ll talk later.”
“Does that mean you’ll be at my place?”
“Yes,” I say, even though I don’t mean to say it, even though I’m not sure if I mean it.
And then I hang up before either of us can say anything else. My hands are shaking. I go to the window and lay them against the glass, feeling the coolness of it, trying to transfer the same coolness to my mind. But the memory of Dad’s promises is too potent, too powerful, too all-consuming. I remember too vividly how he would sit me on the edge of my bed and how he’d lean over me, promising passionately, telling me that everything was going to be different. “Today is the first day of the rest of my life,” he’d say. “I really mean it this time.” And he did. I’m sure he did. But he failed anyway.
I pick up the bag and go into the bedroom, glancing at Cormac. What am I going to do: go to Xander’s place and wait for him to turn on us again? Even if I go to Xander’s apartment, and even if he puts a man outside to protect us, it won’t mean that we’re safe. If Connor got to Arsen, he can get to us; he knows where I live and he knows where Xander lives. No, the only way to stay safe right now is to get out of here, get Cormac far away where nobody knows us, where nobody can hurt him.
I pack the bag quickly so I don’t have a chance to change my mind and then pick up Cormac and take him down to Xander’s car. I wonder how he’ll react to this, adding insult to injury by not only leaving him but by stealing his car. Somehow I know that he won’t hold it against me. Maybe he’ll even see it as a present to his nephew.
I put Cormac in the back and the bag in the trunk and then climb into the driver’s seat. I sit in the darkness for a while, a battle raging within me: the highway or Xander’s apartment building. Then I see Dad, and Xander, and then both of them are the same person, melting together, Xander’s promises becoming just as hollow as Dad’s.
Maybe it isn’t fair. I should give him a fairer chance. But with my baby concerned, I don’t have the luxury of rolling the dice a second time.
It doesn’t matter if I wish the world was made different. The world is made how it is made, and all I can do is find the best path for Cormac.
I drive into the night.
Chapter Eighteen
Xander
“All right, kid.”
Christopher is the first person I see when I wake up. He has that concerned look on his face but right now I can’t say that it annoys me any. In fact, it’s quite reassuring to see it, to know that he knows what I’m going through.
“Old man,” I say, sitting up. I nod down at my body. “Look at this shit. It crinkles when I move.” They changed me into a papery robe when they brought me in here.
“You were fucking blasted, kid. I used the fake IDs to trick ’em into thinking I was your granddaddy and they told me how much alcohol was in your system. At them meetings we have some real drunk motherfuckers, but goddamn … were you going for a world record or something?”
“I don’t know,” I answer honestly. “I just … All I remember is I had a bad dream, and then I wanted a drink. And now I’m here.” I nod to the window, pale morning sunlight shining against the curtains. “Open them up, will you?”
He does like I ask, sunlight spilling into the room. “I need to get out of here,” I tell him. “Right now. I have a lady waiting for me at my apartment.” I hope, is what I don’t say, ’cause showing other men how much you care for a lady ain’t never a good idea, even if you trust them. “Did you handle the police?”
“Yeah, that’s all sorted,” Ranger says, twisting his red beard around his forefinger as he walks into the room. “Yours truly made some moves, danced a dance, and lo and behold, everything was A-Okay. You don’t need to worry about the pigs. What you need to worry about, my good friend, is getting some self-control. Now, I know what you’re thinking.” He pats his belly. “How is a man with an impressive waistline like mine going to lecture you on self-control? But let me tell you something. I’ve never eaten so many cakes that I rode my bike into a streetlamp. That’s a fact, Xander. That’s a campaign promise.”
“I know, I know. Goddamn. I get it. I’m an asshole. Can you get me out of here now, please? Get me some clothes.”
“Here they are.” Maxwell walks into the room holding camo pants and an army-green shirt. When he notices everybody staring askance at him, he s
hrugs. “You said bring clothes so I brought clothes. What did you expect, the latest in fashionwear? Either take these or leave the hospital dressed in printing paper. It’s your choice.”
“Give them here.”
They turn around as I get dressed. Once I’m fully dressed, they gather around me. Christopher has a serious look on his face, but the other two are smiling slightly, even Maxwell. “I heard about what happened,” he says. “I have to say, Xander, that you are probably the most idiotic drunk person I’ve ever met in my life. They said you had—what was it—around one and a half thousand milliliters of alcohol in your system, and you decided to go for a ride? They had to pump your stomach.”